Would you want to know?

[BHsigh]

WOW! So similar. Later I asked my wife about her change of mind about the affair. She said "you won me over". and I am like? Noooooo. I walked out on you, nothing was said. I won no one over. But she said later (like 2 weeks of living in hell later) when I saw how you handled it, you conquered me again.

 

I thought I had conquered her 17 years ago! I could have sworn I was a nicer guy to be around BEFORE DDAY than after immersed in PTSD.... Go figure.

 

Yup, my wife said to me at one point that I impressed her by how I was handling it, most of it was outward though, as I was dying inside.

[fellini]

Yup, my wife said to me at one point that I impressed her by how I was handling it, most of it was outward though, as I was dying inside.

 

Exactly... Im like: I handled nothing. I have been in a state of shock and denial and numbness as everything in my world except my daughter has come crashing down around me like I was living in the Inception movie!

 

My case is not so easy because I left my country, my son from another relationship, my family and my career to be in with my wife in a foreign country. I have had to learn the language, and have lost all chances of a pension, essentially putting myself at the mercy of our marriage if I am going to survive through retirement. I saw my biggest scariest nightmare pass before my eyes from her disclosure.

 

It took me months to get to a place where I am not in this for fear, or for our daughter who I cherish more than my life itself.

[Betterthanthis13]

No. Secrets are not always bad. That just cannot be. We all know this to be not true, just as we all know that secrets are not always about shame.

 

Lies are not always bad. We all know this as adults. We tell our children, "It's very bad to tell a lie", which is, in itself, a lie. Because we all lie about things, big or small, during our lives. How can any skill set that we have, ONLY be bad? From a pure logic point of view, that just cannot make sense. Lies are tools, language is a tool. These are part of our tool sets and how we use them is more important than THAT we use them. If it is impossible for you to imagine how a LIE might be good, or a SECRET not shameful, or not good, then we can't really have a conversation about things which have no possibility for flexibility and interpretation can we?

 

I don't know about profound sadness or restlessness of mind. I think I can be sad my wife had an affair, whether I wanted to know or not.

 

The point is this: someone asked if we would prefer not to have known.

I say yes. I told my wife either on DDAY or the day after, I wish she had just ended it herself and not told me. Why did she have to put the entire thing on ME if at the end of the day she didnt want to leave me, wanted to end it, and fix her marriage. I still believe this today. This is why I say it, not because of mental acrobatics. It is how I felt then, and it is how I feel now.

 

In the end I have to have confidence that my wife is capable of individual insight, change, and commitment. Otherwise I wouldn't be in this for the long run.

 

I actually said the same thing you did about secrets and lies being not inherently "bad" and gave several examples of why a person might keep a secret besides shame...

[FitChick]

If it was a "one off" never repeated and I never knew, why add drama?

[acrosstheuniverse]

I would want to know yes, because even years later I think I'd still struggle to stay with somebody that had at some stage of our relationship lied to my face, held me, kissed me and told me he loved me while he was going off elsewhere and disrespecting our union by doing the same **** to somebody else.

 

If it was a one off, a one time thing, that they bitterly regretted with all of their heart and spent the following years trying to atone for then I think there's a chance I'd rather not know. I don't know if I could forgive that, but it's possible... it's impossible I would be able to forgive an affair as far as I know.

 

So I'd rather find out the truth later than not at all. It would hurt like hell knowing that the past however many years had been partially a lie, but I feel I deserve to know the truth of my own relationship and my own partner's decisions, priorities and capabilities so that I can make an informed decision about whether to stick around or move on.

 

And as strongly as I'm saying all of this, it's not coming from a place of judgement towards people who get into these situations. I was once an 'OW' a year ago, just for three months and to a man who was not married and had no kids, but a live in partner. I would never in a million years have imagined I was capable of that but it turns out I was and it opened my eyes to having more empathy for others who are unfaithful or enable someone else to be unfaithful. Not as much as the empathy for their betrayed partners, but still, I understand that it can happen to many people and that I am in no way able to hold the moral high ground.